2019-2020 MLB Non-Phillies News/Notes Discussion

Lawman 2019-10-03 16:35:45 UTC #421

As per multiple reports, NY Mets have fired manager Mickey Calloway.

zambonir 2019-10-03 18:24:50 UTC #422

While I have my doubts about our ownership, we'll always be better than the Mets.

Philsmania 2019-10-04 12:20:10 UTC #423

I was wrong. Philadelphia isn't the only place that accuses Latinos of being lazy. I guess Phillies phans won't want him when he becomes a FA.

el-pietro 2019-10-04 12:52:46 UTC #424

Its hard to blame them for being upset when it was such a close game. Over the course of a baseball season these sort of things rarely matter, and theres an argument that going all out on every play means you are more likely to get hurt and miss games.
But in a 5 game series it can be the difference between winning or losing, they eventually lost by a run, if he had busted it out of the box he likely gets to second and may have scored given the sequence of events after wards. Now, the whole game changes if hes on second, they pitch differently to the next batters etc, but if it were us we'd be annoyed at Segura or Cesar.
I would like to think we would have the same reaction to Hoskins or Harper but I can imagine them being given the benefit of the doubt for it. I remember a similar play for Hoskins either this year or last year and it got almost no attention so racism is clearly a factor.

BostonRoss 2019-10-04 13:28:10 UTC #425

I don't see a connection between the criticism of Acuna and his being Latino, nor is there anything in the article related to the Braves fans' reactions. Presumably if the reporter thought there was a Latino angle, he would have gotten reaction from one of the Braves Latino players like Teheran. I have no reason to think that the braves wouldn't have been just as critical if it had been, say, Dansby Swanson.

andyb 2019-10-04 14:50:00 UTC #426

I think we had incidents of both Hoskins and Harper not running out balls that they thought would be home runs in the last couple of months of the season. They were noted in the press, the players were apologetic, and then everyone moved on.

Squire 2019-10-04 14:58:41 UTC #427

Nothing in Acuna's post game comments about qualifies as "apologetic" and Ozzie Albies was one of the teammates ripping him about it. And Since neither Hoskins nor Harper's lack of hustle was in a 5 game playoff series, I suspect a bigger deal will be made of this than theirs.

BostonRoss 2019-10-04 15:29:31 UTC #428

I agree that Acuna's action is magnified because it was in a close playoff game. He deserves to be criticized (but is still a great player). I was also unimpressed with his "apology."

But I didn't see anything in the article that related this to his being Latino. Certainly there are people who are quicker to criticize Latinos, or players of color in general. I don't think it is necessarily more predominant in Philadelphia than in other places. That's what I was reacting to.

As an aside, does Albies qualify as Latino? He is from Curacao, which is in the Caribbean but part of the Netherlands.

zambonir 2019-10-04 19:13:11 UTC #429

It is certainly true that all of MLB holds Latin players to a different standard than white players, though as the game has gotten browner and younger (and the managers have gotten younger) that is starting to change (when it comes to things like bat glips, watching your home run, being demonstrative, etc.) Philly's relationship with Herrera, Franco etc. is absolutely no different than most other cities, regardless of what else might be true of the city's history with race and sports.

And yeah, in the playoffs, "it happens" or "you can't go all out every play" doesn't apply. The playoffs are the reason why you can say those things in the regular season!

Anyway, great game, you love to see it! Bullpens, man.

zambonir 2019-10-04 19:51:08 UTC #430

schillingfan 2019-10-04 22:34:20 UTC #431

Just another reason I wish Pete Rose never existed. Pete hustled loudly Chase Utley played hard but not flagrantly. He was best ever at throwing his body into the ball to get on base. I think the Charlie Hustle juxtaposed with a stereotype of laid back Latinos does hurt them some.

LoneStarPhan 2019-10-05 00:04:25 UTC #432

I want to see the Phillies sign players such as Acuna as international free agents as teenagers rather than try to sign them as ML free agents.

allentown 2019-10-05 00:23:05 UTC #433

The Latin American stars seem to come from a different pool than Sal and his scouts swim in. Sal is the master of signing projectible, low-cost pitching prospects. He also, many years ago, discovered Ruiz in Mexico and was able to sign him for a pittance. Despite Sal's positives, I think it time to admit that he and his guys haven't done even a close to adequate job signing primo position prospects. I don't know if we deal with the wrong buscones, scout for the wrong attributes and body type, or what. Other teams are getting star position players out of LA. We dropped $5+ million on Encarnacion and Ortiz and it looks like we will have nothing to show for that very large investment. This year, the top guy we were tied to was a scamster, so we ended up signing none of the primo talents and, I think I remember reading, actually traded away international allocation. Still a chance to sign a Cuban, I guess, but if we were going to be hard-charging in that endeavor, would we have traded allocation, especially given that we began in the lowest $ tier and lost $ from that for our FA signings last off-season?

zambonir 2019-10-05 05:24:54 UTC #434

The fact that Charlie Hustle was originally an insult is pretty great.

andyb 2019-10-05 15:48:57 UTC #435

Seeing all these power arms in the postseason really highlights the lack of power arms at the top of our organization currently. The reason behind it is the failure to develop some power arms (Velasquez and Pivetta, but also Drew Anderson and De Los Santos and Yacksel Rios), trades (Sixto), and injuries (Seranthony). It is pretty noticeable out of the bullpen now. Velocity is not the only thing, but it is still an important thing. Balance of styles should at least be a future goal.

zambonir 2019-10-05 21:31:12 UTC #436

Make Gabe an offer!

philsphan67 2019-10-06 16:40:49 UTC #437

Good read -- major problem with the play-offs in general are the really long games. 3-1 game last night was 3:46. I thought the Nat's Brewers game was great, drama and under 3 hours. Not every game has to be under 3 hours, but 9 inning play-off games averaging 3:40 isn't getting it done for baseball to draw new fans.

el-pietro 2019-10-12 21:53:45 UTC #438

The Angels Director of Communications procured opiods and took them with Skaggs. In a previous version of this article it also mentioned that 5 other Angels players were also on similar drugs. It didnt say if they were current players.

Nightengale is speculating that this may affect the Angels pursuit of Maddon and that the Phillies are still in play for him. Sounds like its based on very little other than his own opinion though.
https://twitter.com/BNightengale/status/1183112860928360448

zambonir 2019-10-12 23:19:56 UTC #439

As usual. I doubt that means more than Maddon's 30-year history. Or the size of the check.

Crazy/sad story. That guy has been there for more than two decades and is in his 40s too, this is not just some former intern.

andyb 2019-10-14 19:06:08 UTC #440

Interestingly the free agent qualifying offer goes down slightly this year to $17.8 million from $17.9 million.

It is an average of the salary of the top 125 best paid players in the game. While one might posit that teams are being smarter, I think it is likely that teams are just spending less. When the full data on salaries for 2019 is compiled I am better that the average for everybody has gone down and is probably equal to 2017 and maybe even close to 2016.

The next CBA fight will be ugly.